House of Wayne
by SamaelTheDevil
Summary: A world where the Caped Crusader delivers justice in Westeros with his fists and by wearing the cloak of anonymity in the Shadows.


**Prologue**

Fate is a fickle friend.

Fickle, because the smallest of coincidences can derail the best-set of plans. Chance is the bane of strategy, and it is the bane of men. Neither is fate limited to the field of battle, it is unpredictable in scope, and even more so in delivery. For a man may meet his fate at any time, through any possible means. Fate doesn't demarcate. It doesn't stop for nobles, it doesn't have pity on the peasantry. It simply is.

And a friend, because if brings things to pass. Fate, through all its fickleness and transience, always has a plan. A plan that almost makes it feel sentient. A thousand gods put together couldn't dictate the course of the world for an eternity, but fate makes it feel so effortless. Equally as effortless at it made look the felling of a fort in the face of a dragon. Fate was absolute, and it favored very few.

But those that it did had nothing to fear, even in the darkest of days.

It was fate that favored Aegon the Conqueror, as he took over the mainland of Westeros with three dragons and nary a few troops. Fate favored the Lannisters, as they established themselves as the richest house in all of Westeros. As they found themselves in one beneficial political treaty after another. And it was ultimately fate that betrayed Rhaegar Targaryen when he needed it the most. It chose Robert Baratheon, and all that Rhaegar got in return was the spike of a war-hammer, right in his chest.

Fortune, a fickle friend with an affinity for the boldest of the bold, as observed by anyone with a sane mind and good recollection.

A fact that had served to vex him all throughout his life.

He was once a child, like any other man in Westeros. He hailed from the house Wayne, banner men to the mad king before his sudden demise. He had barely celebrated his second name day when his family was forced to flee King's landing. He never claimed to remember it either way. The Narrow Sea, on the other hand, he remembered fondly. He was small, and according to his mother, as born with the countenance of a sailor. Never did he ever feel sick or tired, be it on the deck on a warm, dull morning. Or be it locked in the hold, his ship seized by storm winds. Even though they were on the run, those were probably the happiest moments from his childhood. Him, his parents and their retinue of servants, crossing from one inhospitable port city to the next. They never had much, but they had each other.

They finally found safe harbor in the trading city of Qarth. It was a city of dreams, at least for his house. The Waynes had always been smart traders. They never found their calling in combat, and not a single knight had ever hailed from their humble halls. They were merely one of the many vertebrae that formed the backbone of the Targaryen Empire. It was a glorified way of calling themselves slave traders. But that was what their royal duty decreed. And they were exceptionally good at it.

Qarth was a city where money was power. They never truly needed large garrisons, for their coffers afforded them any and all troops they ever needed. Astapor was only a few days away by horseback, and even less by sea. And there was no army that could survive the combined defensive and offensive might of their great city walls and the endless waves of Unsullied.

Hence, the Waynes decided to become middlemen. In a City where defense was the best (and more often than not) and only offense, having a garrison of soldiers-for-hire on short notice sounded like a smart business opportunity. Cut out the middleman, and Astapor would only ever be contacted in the case of an invading army. And the only army that posed a significant danger to the city was too broke, too fragmented after having been bashed against the walls of King's landing. It was a flawless idea, and it held great profit.

But there was one singular catch to it.

Astapor was not a city friendly to outsiders. Even less so when the outsiders in question came from an influential family backed by the once-monarchs of the land across the narrow sea. The Targaryens had diplomatic immunity. They had nothing to fear from the slave-masters of the port city. The Wayne family, however, were another ball-game. They no longer had the protection of their silver-haired dragon-lords. They no longer had the immunity that was provided to servants of the throne. And for them, this was a novel experience. But the Waynes were malleable. They adapted. In a stroke of pure genius, they forsook the inn and instead paid a slave woman for her shanty outside the city. It was a temporary arrangement, and the slave was better off for it. With the gold dragon she had now earned, maybe she'd be able to support her child for a few more months.

Sadly, the Wayne family did not understand the city of the unsullied quite as well as they believed they did. In their zeal to throw off any unsavory eyes, they had unwittingly led themselves into a trap that any of their confidants could have warned them about. It was well known that an Unsullied was truly considered a warrior after being told to do one simple task. Simple, because to a trained warrior with a lack of emotions, it would be child's play. But it was never meant to be a test fit for a knight. It was a trial by fire, one that turned a slave-boy into an unsullied warrior. One coin, one child's life. That was the bargain.

And the child stated to die that night was already too far away for the unsullied to reach. Neither could he have known that the house he was headed towards, knife in hand, was inhabited by people that even his masters would check their tongues while addressing. In hindsight, had the child not been there, no one would have died that night.

But the Waynes were always a paranoid bunch. There was simply no way they'd leave their one and only heir back in a city that, for all reasons and purposes, could still not be considered safe, could not be considered home.

The Unsullied entered the house, his lifeless, grey eyes seeking out the smallest of the three prone figures in the dark room. As his eyes found his quarry, two other sets of eyes found him. The Lord and Lady Wayne were never good with blades, but the child's father put up a valiant fight. But it was to no avail the Unsullied-to-be had trained his entire life for this moment, and he wasn't going to let some novice stop him. The lord over-reached, and the Unsullied planted his knife into the lord's throat

That was all the Lady could take, as she screamed and launched herself at the Unsullied. True to his title, the child-soldier didn't even flinch at the sight of the approaching woman, who anyone else would have likened to a vengeful banshee. The Unsullied simply waited till the last moment before fluidly slipping past the lady, using one arm to twist her neck in a move that almost looked artful, the young soldier ended her life before she could even fall.

And then, he turned to the child.

It was when he locked eyes with the kid that he realized the folly of what he had just done. The child was not malnutritioned like the kids he grew up with. He wasn't dirty, like the common filth one would find on the city's outskirts. He looked down at the two people he had just casually murdered, and his fears grew ever so much more. Now that his eyes were more attuned to the darkness in the room, he could see them better. They were well fed, well dressed, with aristocratic features that would be remiss on a Westerosi lord.

It was at that moment he realized that he had, in his eagerness to finally be done with the life of a slave, murdered two lords, and almost murdered their heir.

And he ran, throwing the one golden dragon his master had given him to the ground. He didn't even spare a single glance back at the shanty that was supposed to house an easy target for him to assassinate. He kept running, past the city walls and past the bridge over the moat. He didn't stop till his legs carried him deep into the wastes surrounding the city. The Unsullied-to-be felt fear that day. The one singular fear that each and every Unsullied felt, but never showed.

The fear of his master's ire.

The child, meanwhile, was trying to wake his prone parents. He had been woken up by the loud wailing of his mother and the sounds of clashing steel. Both things he was used to due to his father's habit of dueling his retainers during the year they spent at sea. It was something he did to pass the time, and he was obviously not very good at it. It also served to make his mother angry, not that he could understand why.

But the shriek that woke him up was a remarkably different from the one he was used to .For one, it was far too panicked to be normal, and secondly, it had ended with an abrupt snap. As he woke up, he saw him mother being laid down on the floor by a stranger. And as the stranger had turned to meet the child's gaze, a small chill of abject terror passed over the child's visage. In that moment, he took in the horror-struck face of the man who he had woke up to find in his temporary room.

And once he found out that his parents were never waking up, he'd make sure he never forgot that face.

Fate sided with him that day. Compared to his parents, he was a much easier target. Yet, he was the one who lived, and they died. It was the irony that his parents, possibly the boldest people he had ever met, were forsaken by fate in his favor that continued to vex him till his day. It was what slid into his mind as he donned his famous, jagged cape. As famous as a mystery knight could be, that is. He sat down on his horse, his dark armor absorbing light as he trotted towards the arena where he would meet his next opponent.

The crowd cheered as he neared the start point, the edge of the railing that he would start from. Of course they recognized him. Between his Dark, edged armor and the bat-shaped sigil on his shield, hi legend had spread by word of mouth. After all, twenty tourneys all around Essos in less than three years without a single loss. There were not many knights who could rival that record. His opponent rod in after him, taking his position past the stands. As the joust was signaled, the horses flew off. And in the next ten seconds, so did his opponent. Knocked off his saddle by a deft yet powerful blow. As the dark-plated knight brought his horse around, the crowd began to chant the moniker that he had become famous for.

After all, even though none of them knew Bruce Wayne, the man under the mask, they all knew and loved Batman. Champion of the common folk, and prized competitor in the Hand's upcoming welcoming tourney.

 **There you have it guys, this was not written by me, I gave this as a challenge to my friend so don't hope for any new chapters.**


End file.
